National award for University of Nottingham Sport nutritionist
The 2025 TASS (Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme) Awards were recently awarded and a number of University of Nottingham saw plenty of recognition with university practitioners being nominated in multiple categories. These nominees included sports nutritionist Dan Richardson who would win the 2025 TASS Performance Nutritionist of the Year award.
Published 15 Jul 2025
The Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme (TASS) is an athlete support programme to help talented athletes with balancing the demands of their sport and studies to be the best in both areas. We are proud to be a Dual Career Accredited Delivery Site here at the University of Nottingham, and across the academic year deliver a number of services to TASS athletes from the University of Nottingham and athletes from around the UK.
The calibre of support delivered by our practitioners at the university was reflected in eight University of Nottingham staff members being nominated across the range of yearly awards, and four of those reaching the final shortlists. These were Hetty Rudman (Sports Psychologist of the Year), Laura Sainsbury (Physiotherapist of the Year), David Knapton (Personal Development Practitioner of the Year), and Dan Richardson (Performance Nutritionist of the Year).
David Knapton returned to the award nominations after winning the Personal Development Practitioner of the Year award twelve months ago, with Nottingham's Nabil Shah winning the 2024 Physiotherapist Practitioner of the Year.
Our 2025 nominees joined practitioners from across the country at the 2025 TASS Conference, held at Leeds Beckett University at the start of July, and we were thrilled to see Dan Richardson win the Performance Nutritionist of the Year award for 2025.
Reflecting on the award and past year, Dan said "I was unbelievably excited and grateful to win the 2025 TASS Nutritionist of the Year award. Attending the TASS Conference was a brilliant reminder of how much quality work is happening across the network to support talented athletes, and to be recognised in that environment was incredibly humbling.
I’m especially thankful to the University of Nottingham for placing nutrition at the heart of athlete development, performance, and wellbeing. The culture here around athlete support is outstanding. A huge thank you to Matt Nicholson and Phil Wood for their backing throughout the year. I’ve really enjoyed being part of such a high-performing environment and I’m looking forward to building on it next academic year."
We look forward to continuing the fantastic work of our practitioners throughout the rest of the year and into 2026, providing a range of services that include lifestyle and personal development support, as well as physiotherapy and strength and conditioning - all delivered by University of Nottingham Sport staff at our High Performance Zone and Sports Injury Clinic within David Ross Sports Village.
I was unbelievably excited and grateful to win the 2025 TASS Nutritionist of the Year award. Attending the TASS Conference was a brilliant reminder of how much quality work is happening across the network to support talented athletes, so to be recognised in that environment was incredibly humbling.
Dan Richardson, Performance Nutritionist at the University of Nottingham
We would like to congratulate Dan on his award and thank all of our staff for their work with talented athletes this year.
To find out more about TASS at the University of Nottingham, please visit; TASS - The University of Nottingham.
Notes for editors
University of Nottingham are the top UK University for team sport, placing 2nd in the overall British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) rankings in the 2023/24 season. For more information on our performance sport offer, including scholarships and support for student athletes, please click here.